Bulwer’s Petrel Bulweria bulwerii 褐燕鸌
Category I. Accidental.
IDENTIFICATION
Dark brown with paler band across upperwing coverts visible at close to moderate range and slightly paler face visible at close range. Wings rather long and pointed, tail long: wedge-shaped when fanned as it manoeuvres, but usually rather pointed in directional flight. Flight is rather like a bat in being erratic and buoyant in a zig-zagging fashion. Generally solitary or in pairs.
VOCALISATIONS
Silent away from the breeding grounds (Megyesi and O’Daniel 2020).
DISTRIBUTION AND HABITAT PREFERENCE
The sole record was a bird taken into care.
OCCURRENCE
The sole record is of an exhausted bird picked up at Cheung Sha Wan in the wake of a tropical storm on 24 June 2011; taken into care, it died three days later (Ma 2013).
BEHAVIOUR, FORAGING & DIET
No observations.
RANGE & SYSTEMATICS
Monotypic. Breeds on islands in the eastern Atlantic and western and central Pacific Oceans between 10oS and 40oN and disperses at sea in the tropical winter (Megyesi and O’Daniel 2020). The nearest breeding sites to HK are off Taiwan and southern Japan. In China a summer visitor to sea areas from the Yangtze south, including Taiwan and Hainan (Liu and Chen 2020).
CONSERVATION STATUS
IUCN: Least Concern. Population trend stable.
Liu, Y. and Y. H. Chen (eds) (2020). The CNG Field Guide to the Birds of China (in Chinese). Hunan Science and Technology Publication House, Changsha.
Ma, C. K. W. (2013). Bulwer’s Petrel Bulweria bulwerii found at Cheung Sha Wan. The first Hong Kong record. Hong Kong Bird Report 2011: 192-196.
Megyesi, J. L. and D. L. O'Daniel (2020). Bulwer's Petrel (Bulweria bulwerii), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (S. M. Billerman, Editor). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.bulpet.01
